Price says reluctant goodbye to Princeton High
By Barry Merrill
NL Publisher
02 January 2008 — When word started leaking out a few months ago that Princeton High School Assistant Principal Michael Price would be leaving the school, he asked that we not publish anything about it for a while. He wanted to have a chance to break it to his students himself.
“Leaving Princeton will probably be one of the hardest things I have ever done,” Mr. Price said on Dec. 21, while packing up his office the day after classes ended for the year. He moves to Johnston County Schools Central Office as Secondary Exceptional Children’s Curriculum Specialist when the semester is over.
Reflecting on his five and a half years at Princeton, he commented, “The cliché is that we are a family. It truly is a family here: staff, students, community and parents.
“This senior class will be the last class that I taught English. Leaving them will be difficult.”
Mr. Price moves to a brand new position in the county, and in the state. “We’ve already had elementary curriculum specialists (for exceptional children) in place for a year. This is the first time we have tried to do something for middle and high school.”
Working with children who are facing some extra challenges, and finding ways to reach them, has been a passion for Michael Price for many years.
Michael grew up in Seven Springs. His mother is a beautician and his father is an accountant, and they both still live in Seven Springs.
Michael is a 1990 Eastern Wayne graduate. When he left Eastern Wayne, he enrolled at Mount Olive, and earned his two-year degree in science. He went to Barton from there, and received his bachelor’s in middle school education and a second degree in deaf and hard of hearing education.
He said he was attracted to the latter field as he has two cousins, one on each side of his family, who are deaf.
Upon graduation in 1995, he was hired at Norwayne Middle School in northern Wayne County as a 7th grade English teacher. The next year, he was offered a position as a hearing impaired teacher for the county based in Grantham. Being on the road a lot was not for Michael and the following year he was offered a 7th grade English job at Grantham, one he stayed with for six years.
He had a desire to move into administration, and in 1998 went back to school to work on his master’s in school administration. He finished in the summer of ’01, and was offered an assistant principal position at Grantham that fall.
The new job only lasted a semester. “I wasn’t ready to leave the classroom at that point. It wasn’t out of my blood yet.” He maintains that he loved the school and loved the community, but it was an internal battle for him.
At Christmas of ’01 he went back to the field of hearing impaired for the county schools, but the next fall, when offered a position as 8th grade English teacher, he moved to Princeton.
He spent the next two years in that same position, but moved to the high school as a student advocate with his last 8th grade class. That made the connection with that group of students more special.
Three years ago at Christmas, Gene Byrd, who was serving as an assistant principal, left Princeton, and this time Michael was ready to move into administration.
He became the assistant principal for instruction in the high school, working with curriculum for K-12 at the school. “Curriculum has already been a passion for me.
“I’ve been working with the N.C. Teacher Academy for six years. This has afforded me the opportunity to write and present curriculum for teachers across the state.
“I’ve been working a lot with brain based research and finding strategies to strengthen learning styles. We’re giving teachers new strategies to increase memory skills and classroom management.
“This new position will provide teachers who are struggling with tools for improvement. With the paperwork load, teachers have very little time to research to find strategies. I help them find workshops to go to and find them resources and bring them back to them.”
Michael has been one of the major promoters at Princeton of the National Board Certification. Princeton now has sixteen board-certified staff members. Many of the recently certified teachers have cited Michael’s help with reviewing their submissions and making important suggestions that helped them win certification, as well as his support for their quest.
His new job will include leading training and providing workshops for middle and high school teachers on research-based programs to increase reading and math scores. He will observe and model lessons in classrooms across the county. He will interpret and track data for Exceptional Children teachers.
The position is designed to help teachers and schools meet progress and growth standards as part of the state and federal testing programs.
Like many others, Michael believes the current testing program goes too far with expectations. “The testing program in North Carolina is good, but when you start overloading teachers for a lack of progress, there are issues there.
“I do feel everyone needs to be held accountable, but I’m not sure we have reached a fair process of measuring accountability at this point.”
When he’s not at school, Michael enjoys getting outdoors. Fishing and hiking are his two favorite hobbies: flounder gigging at Snead’s Ferry and hiking up Grandfather Mountain.
Church and his faith are obviously important to Michael, as any student or co-worker will tell you. He serves as choir director and acting youth pastor at Free Chapel near Patetown in northern Wayne County.
He was asked when he was going into the ministry full-time for this interview, and responded he had been asked that question many times. “I’ve always felt that education has been my ministry. I’ve been able to reach a lot of kids through the classroom. I’ve been able to reach more through being assistant principal. I was able to see God work in many lives through the baseball championship last year. I was honored to be a part of that.
“I try to keep up with the students as much as I can. Most of the students here, I have a relationship with, and it will be difficult to be gone.”
Tim Harrell, who has been serving as principal at Southern Wayne for the past year and a half, will be taking Mr. Price’s assistant principal job at Princeton. “I know Mr. Harrell very well, and he will be able to pick up where I left off. He has a heart for students and he will do a great job.
“With my new position, I don’t know what my role will be, but I do see God’s hand in it, and I am excited to see what He will do with it and through it.
“One of my greatest concerns in moving to this position is losing that daily contact with the children. My students have told me that I have to be at this game, at graduation, at this function. I will still be here to support them.”
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